Pathologist tells inquest he found no physical evidence shove caused death but stress could aggravate heart condition
The stress caused by Ian Tomlinson being shoved to the ground by a police officer during the G20 protests could have triggered a heart attack, pathologist Freddy Patel has told an inquest.
Patel, who concluded in a postmortem that the newspaper seller died of a heart attack, said it was "well recognised" that a stressful trauma could aggravate a heart condition.
But he had found no physical evidence that this had caused the death, which he attributed to natural causes.
Tomlinson, 47, collapsed and died near the Bank of England on 1 April 2009, less than three minutes after being hit with a baton and pushed to the pavement by a Metropolitan police officer, PC Simon Harwood.
Patel, who performed the first postmortem two days later, found he had coronary artery disease and could have died at any time.
Matthew Ryder QC, for Tomlinson's family, asked if the shock of being shoved to the floor by Harwood could have led to his death. He suggested that Patel's conclusions were wrong and that the cause of death was internal bleeding, as two other pathologists found. But if Tomlinson had died of a heart attack, the shove may have triggered it.
Patel replied: "No, what I'm saying is that there is a compelling association, but there is no causal evidence. A pathologist cannot say that caused it without the evidence."
The pathologist added: "Trauma can induce a stressful situation. If there is a stressful situation, it is well known that can be a significant contribution to a heart attack."
The pathologist distinguished between physical trauma and emotional trauma, saying the latter could not be measured in a postmortem.
Tomlinson, who was an alcoholic, had a blood alcohol level about five times the legal driving limit when he died, the inquest heard.
Patel said this could be one explanation for why he did not complain of pain after his collapse.
The inquest heard that Patel revised his postmortem report after the pathologists Nat Cary and Kenneth Shorrock disputed his findings.
He changed the wording of his conclusions to make it clear that three litres of fluid found in Tomlinson's abdomen was not pure blood.
The coroner, Judge Peter Thornton QC, told the jury at the start of the inquest there was likely to be controversy about Patel's findings on how much blood was in the liquid. The abdominal fluid was thrown away before the other pathologists raised questions about the cause of death.
At one stage, amid confusion over Patel's evidence, he replied: "I'm not a very good wordsmith."
The inquest jury heard for the first time that Patel has twice been sanctioned by the General Medical Council for failings in his postmortems in other cases.
The hearing in London continues.